Title

Authors

Document Type

Article

Department

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Abstract

Motivational factors and experiences have the potential to influence students’ attitudes and anxiety levels towards English language learning. Recognizing the importance and multi-dimensional complexities of motivational attitudes and anxiety, this mini-research study attempts to investigate gender wise students’ attitudes, motivation and anxiety towards the learning of English as a second language in the multilingual context of Karachi, Pakistan. The study adapts a survey questionnaire from Gardner’s ‘Attitude Motivation Test Battery,’ to explore attitudes (English language and learning), motivations (intrinsic and extrinsic) and classroom anxiety of grade 8th students in a private secondary school. The survey findings of 77 students (40 males and 37 females) highlight that students have affirmative attitudes and high level of enthusiasm towards English language and its learning. The findings also illustrate a higher degree of extrinsic motivational goals attached to the student’s language learning outcomes and future achievements comparable to intrinsic ones, irrespective of the gender. Overall, the results emphasize girls to have a slightly higher degree of positive attitudes and motivation comparable to the boys. The overall classroom anxiety demonstrates student’s moderate responses with relatively high standard deviation, highlighting that anxiety levels vary from student to student. The study concludes with educational implications and limitations.